Tag Archives: Austerity


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjnJlJh0Wn0

Jose Mujica – president of Uruguay since 2010 – is worth about the same as the 1987 VW Beetle he drives, lives a simple, austere life and urges other world leaders to do the same.

President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife’s farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo. The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers. This austere lifestyle – and the fact that Mujica donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 (£7,500), to charity – has led him to be labelled the poorest president in the world.

Jose Mujica: The world’s ‘poorest’ president (BBC)

awesomer/bbc

The austerity measures being imposed on the country are causing unnecessary suffering and have no purpose because the programme itself is failing, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has told the European Commission.

In a letter sent to István Székely, the European Union representative on the troika of the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, Ictu general secretary David Begg said Ireland would not quickly or easily recover from the scarring effects of structural unemployment or the breaking up of families as a result of emigration.

He said Ictu believed jobs were “the central economic objective and that this should be the guiding light on the road back to fiscal prudence rather than the deficit reduction being the main objective”.

But…but, how can he say that?

Enda’s getting an award and everything….

Austerity failing to achieve results, Ictu says (Martin Wall, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)